Enemy

Jake Gyllenhaal times two, plus some tarantulas.

Enemy, the latest film from Prisoners director
Denis Villeneuve, begins with a koanlike epigraph: “Chaos is order yet
undeciphered.” As self-serious as that line may be, Villeneuve quickly
redeems himself with a series of hypnotically weird scenes—including one
involving tarantulas and masked women at a sex club that’s right out of
Eyes Wide Shut—that prove this isn’t entirely an indulgent exercise in pseudo-intellectualism.

Based on a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning Portuguese fabulist José Saramago, Enemy centers on an affectless history professor named Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal, who also worked with Villeneuve on Prisoners),
a man who spends his days resisting conversation with his colleagues
and his nights having distracted sex with his gorgeous girlfriend. But
when one particularly tenacious co-worker suggests Adam rent a silly
rom-com, he gives in—and discovers that one of the actors looks exactly
like him. Thus begins a Jekyll and Hyde-meet-Twilight Zone
scenario, in which Adam disguises himself in girly sunglasses and sets
out in search of his doppelgänger. His name is Anthony, and he shares
Adam’s face, voice and scars—even his handwriting—but not his
melancholy. As the look-alikes, Gyllenhaal turns in two sly and playful
performances, sweating and stuttering as Adam, crowing and strutting as
Anthony. Yet the differences remain subtle enough that each time
Gyllenhaal appears onscreen, you ask yourself which man he’s playing.

Set in an unnamed
Canadian city (it was shot in Toronto), the entire film looks stained by
nicotine, all sickly taupes and jaundiced yellows. The score, a fitful
mix of strings and metallic clangs, amplifies the sense of menace. And
then there’s all the spider imagery, including a dreamlike sequence in
which a tarantula-headed woman walks on the ceiling. Arachnophobes may
find it freaky; I found it humorously self-aware.

Villeneuve, mostly to
his credit, doesn’t bother to decipher the aforementioned chaos.
Instead, he keeps a patient but firm grip on the proceedings, even as
his characters’ grip on reality disintegrates. What it all means—and
whether it’s more than a creepy mood piece—is debatable. Is Villeneuve
commenting on male insecurity? On isolation and desire? Or perhaps he’s
just spinning us into an intricate, inescapable web.